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Rainbow News

200 homophobes with children against 50 members of gay parade in St. Petersburg

29 Jun. 2013

Stones, bottles of urine, smoke bombs, fists and children were weapons of combat of homophobes, who greatly outnumbered the participants of the gay pride parade in Hyde Park on the Champ de Mars (Marsovo Polye) in St. Petersburg. The result - disruption of the event and 65 to 80 people in police custody, among them gay activists and religious and obscurantist clerics. Most of the detainees may be charged with "disobedience... to the police and the violation of the order of mass events." Maximum penalty - 300 thousand rubles (ˆ7,000).

Some suggest that the Gay Pride participants were detained as offenders of St. Petersburg's law banning "propaganda of homosexuality". The police had the advice of Member of Parlament Milonov, an orthodox and a "United Russia" party member, who was at the site with his family. ...According to the organization "Help to detained in St. Petersburg" by 6pm that day about 60 gay activists and 11 of their opponents had been detained.

A short video by TV channel Russia Today has the beginning of the attack on the gay parade:

How was the situation progressing...

Shortly after the start of the action homophobes staged a number of provocations - they were throwing stones, rotten eggs, smoke bombs in the direction of the protesters. Meanwhile, the police demanded to stop the action, as the administration of St. Petersburg, they said, had received complaints from the citizens on violation of the law banning "homo-propaganda." The organizers of the gay parade are reported to have refused to do so. The situation escalated to the point where on one of the organizers - the leader of the "Equality" Yuri Gavrikov was punched by the nationalists. What was happening was clearly out of control of the police. Riot police began to detain the gay parade participants, explaining that the slogans of protesters violated the law banning "homo-propaganda" because there were minors around. They had been brought by the opponents of gay emancipation.

Poster of the IV Petersburg Gay Pride, distributed by the "Alliance of heterosexuals..."

In his Twitter homophobic deputy Milonov, one of the leaders of the local "United Russia" party, described the participants of the parade an "aggressive bunch of perverts" and diverted the blame for what happened to the organizers. "The meeting of aggressive perverts was allowed by the head of the Committee on Law Bogdanov. Our children are preached diabolical gospel with that blessing..." - wrote Milonov. "Why did the riot police in St. Petersburg beat people protesting against the sodomites in St. Petersburg? While in Moscow these perverts were banned from spoiling the air..." - was the orthodox fighter outraged against gays and lesbians.

However, journalists note that the instigators of the riots this time again were the homophobic. They, for example, attacked a road police officer on the Champ de Mars, spraying tear gas.

Gay activists being taken evacuated from the scene were followed by homophobic curses, promises of death and revenge. Two windows in the bus were smashed with stones. The situation was still evolving. Observers note that among the detainees was nationalist Dmitry D., who had been indicted by the court under "Battery" for an attack on a group of gay activists in June 2012. A week ago he had received a certificate of honor by the christian orthodox right at the time of the trial. Gay activists believed the police would take them to safety of the subway, but instead they were taken to several police stations and issued reports on the violation of the law on public meetings.

Journalist Anastasia Mironova documented in detail what was happening.